^^^in tennis regards, Laurie Doherty supposedly was godly back in the day too, then you have Renshaw, but I have already mentioned my thoughts on guys like that. Their records are sick though no doubt about it.

Laurie Doherty is famous for being the first player to win his home major (Wimbledon) and then cross the Atlantic Ocean to win the other major (US Championships), which he did in 1903. The US Championships was held in Newport, Rhode Island back then, the current location of the Hall of Fame Championships every July.

I must mention Tony Wilding. He was the first player to dominate internationally, and regularly win big events outside of his own continent. Wilding won 2 Australasian Championships in 1906 (Christchurch, New Zealand) and 1909 (Perth, Western Australia), in the days before it was a major, i.e. when the tournament was just a regional event. Wilding then started going abroad and was able to win Wimbledon for 4 years in a row (1910-1913), admittedly only having to play 1 match at the 1911-1913 tournaments, as defending champions did at Wimbledon up to 1921, even though Wilding offered to play through.

The ILTF (ITF today) said that there would be 3 official major tournaments in 1913:

1. the World Hard Court Championships (a clay-court event in Paris that was the precursor to the French Championships)

2. the World Grass Court Championships (aka Wimbledon)

3. the World Covered Court Championships (an indoor wood tournament that moved around the continent of europe. Held in Stockholm in 1913)

In 1913, Wilding won all 3 of these official majors. In 1914, he retained his WHCC title, but failed to win his fifth Wimbledon title. As he was from New Zealand, Wilding won 4 Davis Cup titles with Australasia in 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1914. WW1 had already started at the time of the 1914 Davis Cup final, and Wilding was killed in the trenches in 1915 at the age of just 31. Something I recently discovered about Wilding is that he won more clay-court tournaments than any other player in history. I believe it is over 60.